Uplink Data Transmission Apparatus, Uplink Data Reception Apparatus and Methods Thereof

This application is a continuation application under 35 U.S.C. 111(a) of International Patent Application PCT/CN2023/075470 filed on Feb. 10, 2023, and designated the U.S., the entire contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.

This disclosure relates to the field of communication technologies.

In the standardization process of the 5th Generation Mobile Communication Technology (5G) under the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), key issues, solutions and conclusions supporting advanced media services are being studied, such as high data rate low latency (HDRLL) services, extended reality (XR) services, and haptic/multi-modal communication services, etc.

For example, in the study of XR service, XR is a general term of different types of realities, and different application fields of XR include entertainment, healthcare, and education, etc.

Virtual reality (VR) is a rendered version of released visual and audio scenes. When an observer or user moves within the limits defined by an application, rendering aims to simulate the visual and auditory sensory stimuli of the real world as naturally as possible; augmented reality (AR) refers to providing users with additional information or artificially-generated items or content overlaid on their current environment; and mixed reality (MR) is an advanced form of AR, in which some virtual elements are inserted into physical scenarios to provide an illusion that these elements are part of a real scene.

Extended reality (XR) refers to all real and virtual environments and human-computer interactions generated by computer technologies and wearable devices, including representative forms such as AR, MR, VR, and mixed and intersecting fields.

It should be noted that the above description of the background is merely provided for clear and complete explanation of this disclosure and for easy understanding by those skilled in the art. And it should not be understood that the above technical solution is known to those skilled in the art as it is described in the background of this disclosure.

In the 3GPP standardization process, configured grants (CGs) are supported for uplink, with the use of CGs, a base station (gNB) may allocate uplink resources to a user equipment (UE). CG is a good feature for periodic and highly latency demanding services, and most services generated by XR applications satisfy these two criterions.

It was found by the inventors that due to that XR service(s) has a more complex service pattern, the new service pattern requires enhancement of legacy CG configuration and processes. Therefore, in a case where there are more than one CG transmission occasions in a periodicity of a configured grant (CG) configuration, how to transmit uplink data or ensure transmission delay of uplink data accurately is a problem needing to be solved.

In order to solve at least one of the above problems, embodiments of this disclosure provide an uplink data transmission apparatus, an uplink data reception apparatus and methods thereof.

According to one aspect of the embodiments of this disclosure, there is provided an uplink data transmission method, applicable to a terminal equipment, wherein the method includes:

According to another aspect of the embodiments of this disclosure, there is provided an uplink data reception method, applicable to a network device, wherein the method includes:

According to a further aspect of the embodiments of this disclosure, there is provided an uplink data transmission apparatus, configured in a terminal equipment, the uplink data transmission apparatus including:

According to still another aspect of the embodiments of this disclosure, there is provided an uplink data reception apparatus, applicable to a network device, the uplink data reception apparatus including:

According to yet another aspect of the embodiments of this disclosure, there is provided a communication system, the communication system including:

An advantage of the embodiments of this disclosure exists in that the terminal equipment determines hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) associated with one configured grant (CG) occasion in at least two configured grant occasions (CG occasions) in a periodicity of a configured grant (CG) configuration, wherein the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) is (are) different from hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifiers associated with other configured grant occasions (CG occasions) in the at least two configured grant occasions (CG occasions) than the one configured grant (CG) occasion, and transmits uplink data on the one configured grant occasion (CG occasion) according to determined hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) associated with the one configured grant occasion (CG occasion). Hence, in a case where there are more than one CG transmission occasions in a periodicity of a configured grant (CG) configuration, each CG transmission occasion is able to transmit data by using different HARQ process identifiers (using different HARQ processes). Hence, not satisfying quality of service (QOS) requirements of XR service due to delay of XR service data transmission may be avoided, and XR service data loss due to that the XR service data is unable to be retransmitted may also be avoided.

With reference to the following description and drawings, the particular embodiments of this disclosure are disclosed in detail, and the principle of this disclosure and the manners of use are indicated. It should be understood that the scope of the embodiments of this disclosure is not limited thereto. The embodiments of this disclosure contain many alternations, modifications and equivalents within the spirits and scope of the terms of the appended claims.

Features that are described and/or illustrated with respect to one embodiment may be used in the same way or in a similar way in one or more other embodiments and/or in combination with or instead of the features of the other embodiments.

It should be emphasized that the term “comprises/comprising/includes/including” when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.

These and further aspects and features of this disclosure will be apparent with reference to the following description and attached drawings. In the description and drawings, particular embodiments of the disclosure have been disclosed in detail as being indicative of some of the ways in which the principles of the disclosure may be employed, but it is understood that the disclosure is not limited correspondingly in scope. Rather, the disclosure includes all changes, modifications and equivalents coming within the spirit and terms of the appended claims.

In the embodiments of this disclosure, terms “first”, and “second”, etc., are used to differentiate different elements with respect to names, and do not indicate spatial arrangement or temporal orders of these elements, and these elements should not be limited by these terms. Terms “and/or” include any one and all combinations of one or more relevantly listed terms. Terms “contain”, “include” and “have” refer to existence of stated features, elements, components, or assemblies, but do not exclude existence or addition of one or more other features, elements, components, or assemblies.

In the embodiments of this disclosure, single forms “a”, and “the”, etc., include plural forms, and should be understood as “a kind of” or “a type of” in a broad sense, but should not defined as a meaning of “one”; and the term “the” should be understood as including both a single form and a plural form, except specified otherwise. Furthermore, the term “according to” should be understood as “at least partially according to”, the term “based on” should be understood as “at least partially based on”, except specified otherwise.

In the embodiments of this disclosure, the term “communication network” or “wireless communication network” may refer to a network satisfying any one of the following communication standards: long term evolution (LTE), long term evolution-advanced (LTE-A), wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), and high-speed packet access (HSPA), etc.

And communication between devices in a communication system may be performed according to communication protocols at any stage, which may, for example, include but not limited to the following communication protocols: 1G (generation), 2G, 2.5G, 2.75G, 3G, 4G, 4.5G, 5G and new radio (NR), etc., and/or other communication protocols that are currently known or will be developed in the future.

In the embodiments of this disclosure, the term “network device”, for example, refers to a device in a communication system that accesses a user equipment to the communication network and provides services for the user equipment. The network device may include but not limited to the following devices: a base station (BS), an access point (AP), a transmission reception point (TRP), a broadcast transmitter, a mobile management entity (MME), a gateway, a server, a radio network controller (RNC), a base station controller (BSC), etc.

The base station may include but not limited to a node B (NodeB or NB), an evolved node B (eNodeB or eNB), and a 5G base station (gNB), etc. Furthermore, it may include a remote radio head (RRH), a remote radio unit (RRU), a relay, or a low-power node (such as a femto, and a pico, etc.). The term “base station” may include some or all of its functions, and each base station may provide communication coverage for a specific geographical area. And a term “cell” may refer to a base station and/or its coverage area, depending on a context of the term.

In the embodiments of this disclosure, the term “user equipment (UE)” or “terminal equipment (TE) or terminal device” refers to, for example, an equipment accessing to a communication network and receiving network services via a network device. The user equipment may be fixed or mobile, and may also be referred to as a mobile station (MS), a terminal, a subscriber station (SS), an access terminal (AT), or a station, etc.

The terminal equipment may include but not limited to the following devices: a cellular phone, a personal digital assistant (PDA), a wireless modem, a wireless communication device, a hand-held device, a machine-type communication device, a lap-top, a cordless telephone, a smart cell phone, a smart watch, and a digital camera, etc.

For another example, in a scenario of the Internet of Things (IoT), etc., the terminal equipment may also be a machine or a device performing monitoring or measurement. For example, it may include but not limited to a machine-type communication (MTC) terminal, a vehicle mounted communication terminal, a device to device (D2D) terminal, a machine to machine (M2M) terminal, and a communication terminal supporting a sidelink, etc.

Moreover, the term “network side” or “network device side” refers to a side of a network, which may be a base station or one or more network devices including those described above. The term “user side” or “terminal side” or “terminal equipment side” refers to a side of a user or a terminal, which may be a UE, and may include one or more terminal equipments described above. “A device” may refer to a network device, and may also refer to a terminal equipment.

A scenario of the embodiments of this disclosure shall be described below by way of examples; however, this disclosure is not limited thereto.

Two types of configured grants are defined in 3GPP standards, which may also be referred to as configured uplink grants; however, this disclosure is not limited thereto.

CG type 1: radio resource control (RRC) directly provides a configured uplink grant (including periodicity);

CG Type 2: radio resource control (RRC) defines a periodicity of a configured uplink grant, and a physical downlink control channel (PDCCH) (or downlink control information) addressed to a configured scheduling (CS)-RNTI may notify and activate the configured uplink grant, or deactivate it, that is, the PDCCH (or DCI) addressed to the CS-RNTI indicates that the uplink grant may be implicitly reused according to the periodicity defined by RRC, until it is deactivated.

CG is a good feature for periodic and highly latency demanding services, and most services generated by XR applications satisfy these two criterions. For example, a size of CG resource is fixed, and correspondingly, a size of a traffic packet of XR is relatively fixed.

is a schematic diagram of an application scenario of embodiments of this disclosure. As shown in, some XR services have more complex service patterns than CG design. For example, a video streaming service may include periodic protocol data unit bursts (PDU bursts) or PDU sets, rather than a single PDU. This new service pattern may require enhancement to legacy CG configurations and processes. For example, an XR burst size inmay contain more than one data packet, and if only one configured grant resource is used, the more than one data packet is unable to be transmitted; in addition, in an XR frame periodicity, there exists an arrival interval between different PDU packets (referred to as PDU internal arrival interval), as shown in. Currently, configuring CG resources with the arrival interval is not supported.

Therefore, it is agreed in the 3GPP standards to support more than one configured grant transmission occasion (CG PUSCH transmission occasions or CG transmission occasions or CG occasions or uplink transmission occasions, etc.) in a periodicity of a CG configuration (also referred to as one CG periodicity). In this case, more than one data packet in an XR burst or a PDU set may be transmitted on more than one configured grant transmission occasion in a periodicity of a CG configuration.

It was found by the inventors that in a case of supporting more than one CG PUSCH transmission occasion in a periodicity of a single CG configuration, assuming that different data may be transmitted in different CG PUSCH transmission occasions, how to determine a HARQ process identifier used by data in a CG PUSCH transmission occasion needs to be solved.

If a HARQ process identifier is calculated by using what is contained in Table 1 below in an existing standard, some problems will be brought.

Relevant parameters in Table 1 shall be described later in detail.

is an exemplary diagram of a technical problem to be solved by the embodiments of this disclosure. As shown in, if a method for determining an HARQ process ID in an existing standard is still used, more than one CG PUSCH transmission occasion in a periodicity of a CG configuration will use an identical HARQ process ID. As shown in, a periodicity of a CG configuration (assumed as 10 symbols) includes 3 CG PUSCH transmission occasions (first, third and fifth symbols in a periodicity of each CG configuration), and HARQ process IDs used in each of the CG PUSCH transmission occasions in the figure are shown in.

is an exemplary diagram of a technical problem to be solved by the embodiments of this disclosure. As shown in, if a value of a configured grant timer (configuredGrantTimer) is greater than an interval between CG PUSCH transmission occasions, in a periodicity of a CG configuration, when the second CG PUSCH transmission occasion arrives, the configured grant timer (configuredGrantTimer) is still running, that is, configurationGrantTimer to which an identical HARQ process (such as process 0) corresponds has not yet expired. Therefore, a resource (grant) of the second CG PUSCH transmission occasion using identical HARQ process is unable to be used for data transmission, resulting in delayed transmission of XR service data and possible not satisfying QoS requirements of XR services.

is an exemplary diagram of a technical problem to be solved by the embodiments of this disclosure. As shown in, if the value of the configured grant timer (configuredGrantTimer) is not greater than a CG PUSCH transmission occasion, in a periodicity of a CG configuration, the second CG PUSCH transmission occasion transmits data by using an HARQ process identical that used by the first CG PUSCH transmission occasion, that is, the HARQ process will be used by new data (such as data). Therefore, data (data) to which the previous (first) CG PUSCH transmission occasion corresponds are unable to be retransmitted. If a network device has not received datacorrectly, loss of data may be caused.

Hence, in a case where there are more than one CG transmission occasions in a periodicity of one configured grant (CG) configuration, how to determine an HARQ process with which a CG transmission occasion is associated to avoid delay of service data transmission or data loss is a problem needing to be solved.

In order to solve at least one of the above problems, embodiments of this disclosure provide an uplink data transmission apparatus, an uplink data reception apparatus and methods thereof.

The embodiments of this disclosure provide an uplink data transmission method.

is a schematic diagram of the uplink data transmission method of the embodiments of this disclosure. As shown in, the method is applicable to a terminal equipment, and the method includes:

: the terminal equipment determines hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) associated with one configured grant (CG) occasion in at least two configured grant occasions (CG occasions) in a periodicity of a configured grant (CG) configuration, wherein the hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) is (are) different from hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifiers associated with other configured grant occasions (CG occasions) in the at least two configured grant occasions (CG occasions) than the one configured grant (CG) occasion; and

: the terminal equipment transmits uplink data on the one configured grant occasion (CG occasion) according to determined hybrid automatic repeat request (HARQ) process identifier(s) associated with the one configured grant occasion (CG occasion).